now that I've worn out the world
by shrinkingsoul
Summary: She was already past the gates of hell. She'd burned 'em down and smeared the ashes on her face and laughed at the devil himself and here she was, alive as alive could be.


_Now that I've worn out, I've worn out the world_  
><em>I'm on my knees in fascination<em>  
><em>Looking through the night<em>  
><em>And the moon's never seen me before<em>  
><em>But I'm reflecting light<em>  
><strong>Sam Phillips<strong>

* * *

><p>She missed <em>air conditioning,<em> of all things. Beth Greene could only guess how long it had been since she'd last seen a living human face and yet on this night, as her hot skin stuck to the bare twin mattress in the cabin she'd found, she begged the ceiling to let her fall asleep and dream of nothing but air conditioning. Tucked into a back room on the second floor, she had tried to open the windows to create a breeze, but only one of them would open without a screech loud enough to draw every walker this side of the Mississippi to her front yard. There were already several nearby; she could hear them shuffling through the dry grass.

When she was little, their house on the farm didn't even have central air. Her earliest memories melted together into a stream of neverending summer vacations: sweat blurring her vision and sunshine beating into the skin on her shoulders while she helped her daddy with the animals, and lying on the floor feeling completely helpless and stupid with the box fan in the window set as high as it would go because even at night, summers in Georgia are hotter than hell itself. It wasn't until Beth was in middle school that the family decided to make the investment. Which meant that she could probably dig deep and find within her a well of tolerance for the ungodly amount of perspiration pouring from her body, but honestly… she couldn't be fucked, as Maggie would put it. She was tired. Her whole being felt heavy.

And  
><em>damn<br>_it.

It was _hot._

The ghost of a song that her brother used to play unfolded in the back of her mind..._ stand me up at the gates of hell but I won't back down_…and she couldn't help but smile. She was already past the gates of hell. She'd burned 'em down and smeared the ashes on her face and laughed at the devil himself and here she was, alive as alive could be. Weary. And lonely. And melting into a puddle.

But alive.

She spent what seemed like hours tripping across the threshold of sleep and awake, sleep and awake, sleep and awake. She wasn't sure when it happened but her brain had slowly adapted to being alone. Even when she was sure she was dreaming, she could still hear every tiny whisper that the world around her made. The house groaning and settling into the humidity. The mosquitoes buzzing around her face. The walkers stumbling around the yard, moaning and hissing and bumping into the piles of junk left around by the cabin's owners. Very distant thunder rumbling, the sky as empty of rain as her stomach of real food. She had been hunting four times in the past two days but it seemed too hot for even the squirrels to stir, driving her to partake of the extensive collection of canned pickled cabbage and beets in the cellar of the cabin. It was better than nothing, but… didn't anybody like beef jerky anymore?

Beth rolled over onto her side. The rusty bed frame squawked like a bird and jolted her into consciousness at the same time that she heard footsteps on the front porch. Firm, sure, evenly placed footsteps approaching the door.

Her heart slammed into her throat.

For several days she had debated on whether or not she even wanted to stay in the little log cabin, worrying that it was too horror-movie-obvious for the girl running for her life to shack up in the creepy house in the woods. In the end she'd decided that the surrounding woods were thick enough to provide camouflage, so she'd found a heavy shovel and knocked out the rotting steps which led to the high front porch. It was exactly low enough for her to climb up with practiced ease, which meant that her visitor was definitely living.

Reaching for the knife in her boot and the gun on the table, she listened, waited. The front door scraped against the floor as it opened, followed by a muffled "shit" when it slammed into the noise trap she'd set. Her breath felt like sandpaper in her chest as she slipped off of the bed and crept into the hallway as slowly as possible to avoid making the floorboards creak. Whoever it was down there, she was determined to see them before they saw her.

The footsteps moved around the first floor, steady and quick, opening more doors with consecutive bangs. She heard them rummaging through the emptied jars she'd left out on the kitchen table and shuffling through the piles of newspaper and junk mail. Suddenly the person fell silent as if waiting for something to happen. Beth didn't breath. The beam of a flashlight swept toward the stairs and followed them up, stopping no more than three feet from where she stood. Her head felt light and she vaguely acknowledged that they seemed far too rushed to be doing a basic supply run, especially at this time of night. The human body could learn to tell time simply by the way things felt, and the night was still too thick to be any later than one or two in the morning.

Anger sparked in her belly, sharp as a knife, and it burned through her so hot and fast that she was nearly blinded by it. Three times now she had been forced from her home. Three times swallowed whole by the horror of this world, and she didn't deserve to have it happen again. She'd be damned. Her finger found the curve of the trigger and she willed her pulse to stop thrumming so loudly behind her ears. Sweat rolled down her back. _Come on, you bastard._

Raindrops tapped against the window. In just a few moments the whole house was immersed in the white noise of a heavy downpour, so loud that she could barely make out the steps of the stranger on the staircase. They were close, though; in the light of their torch she could see the outline of her reflection in the bathroom mirror across the hall. It was too late to move or hide and for just one moment Beth felt very small, standing in the dark with a dead man's pistol in her sweaty hands. She was alone in this fight, again, but she was going to win it. Again.

The stranger was in front of her now, sweeping their light down the hallway. If this were any other day she might have considered letting them spot her first, just so they'd know exactly who sent them to meet their maker, but they were likely wound tight from expecting a monster around every corner and she wasn't going to risk it. So she lifted her gun and she pulled the trigger.

And in between the static thunder of the rain, as the flashlight hit the floor with her target, she heard her name, plain as day.

Oh _God._

"Daryl?" This wasn't real. It could not be and it wasn't. It wasn't. Her mind had played increasingly nasty tricks on her recently but this… this was a brand new ballgame.

She hadn't cried in so, so long but her daddy's face flashed behind her eyes, and her mama's and Judith's and Maggie's, and her knees cracked when they made contact with the floor. Not too long ago her family had been the only reason she was still alive, the only reason why she kept pushing through all of the shit that kept happening, and the only thing that that hope ended up being good for was keeping her around long enough to watch them all be torn away from her. It was cruel. And she was tired.

She felt around for the flashlight, but the batteries had been knocked out and she couldn't find them. Her chest was turning inside out and she couldn't catch a breath but she had to know. She reached out to touch his face and

And she was alone, lying on the tiny bed in a dusty beam of sunlight with her eyelashes matted together.

Cicadas sang beyond the open window. The air was cooler and she welcomed it into her lungs, though it was still humid enough to drown. Turning her head, she saw that the pistol was exactly where she had left it on the table last night and she pressed her face into the pillow trying to erase the images and feelings from her dream. When she was little, her grandma had once told her that if she put her shoes under her bed at night, she wouldn't have anymore bad dreams. That woman had held onto her superstitions right up to her death, like refusing to let anyone bring wildflowers into the house or else risk bad luck, and thus had been the subject of many good-natured eyerolls from her family, but Beth had trusted her more than almost anyone else.

Maybe she could find several extra pairs of shoes and stuff them all under her bed. At least until she could put enough distance between herself and the past.

* * *

><p><em>Note: I haven't written fanfic in SUCH a long time! A while ago I accidentally started shipping Bethyl harder than I've ever shipped anything, so one thing led to another annnnd... I'm excited! Thanks for reading. xoxo<em>

_P.S. This is pre-season 5. _


End file.
